Ice Storms
by ApatheticAvatar
Summary: There's a story in Kairi's hometown, a myth of ice and snow. Over the years, she slowly grows more and more curious about what was up there on the mountain.


**So I've been reading a lot of "Frozen" fanfiction and I really like the story of "The Snow Queen." Maybe because of that, this crazy plot bunny decided to make a home in my sock drawer.**

 ***glares at it***

 **I've decided to call him Snowflake for now.**

 **Without forever ado, disclaimers: Kingdom Hearts, Frozen, and The Snow Queen do not belong to me in the slightest. They are owned by Disney, Square Enix, and Christian Hans Anderson's family... or whoever owns the royalties to his tales. Please if you spot any mistakes or have questions, please don't hesitate to review and tell me about it. Thank you kindly.**

 ** _-Apathetic (and Snowflake)_**

* * *

She'd heard the stories all the time.

When she was little, they'd capture her. Stories about a shy, lovely witch with a heart of gold, the mortal boy who had had the luck of winning her heart, and the tragic love that ended so painfully soon. But no matter how many times she'd begged her grandmother to tell her the story, there was always a hesitation that piqued the young Kairi's interest. A small pause before the happily ever after. The ending always changed, but Grandmother made it a happy ending for the ice harvester and the memory witch.

One day, when Kairi was four and crying into a corner of the rug after the deaths of her parents, her Grandmother told her a different version of the tale.

She'd wiped the tears off the little girl's face, settled her into a crook of her arm and in her lap, and whispered the words into her ear in a very soft voice. As she listened, Kairi's mind replaced the beautiful face of the young witch with the one of her mother and the classically handsome face of the ice harvester with the one of her father. It took a long time for the words to make sense but in the end, the story's finale made sense to a grieving child.

The ice harvester, saddened by his mortality, had told the witch that he couldn't fall for a woman that would live as long as the winds and ice that made up his home. She, heartbroken by her love's rejection, made it her mission to find a way to give up her mortality… or to give him his own. In the end, Grandmother warned her, the witch could not fight fate. The boy was not meant to be immortal and she wasn't meant to be mortal. But the witch had tried to fight anyway and sealed a portion of her mortality into a great mirror.

But all her magic and all her power could not change her love's innate nature.

For a human meant to fade in less than a century, the witch's power was simply too great. The moment that he was reflected in the mirror, its great frame had cracked. She could not stop fate and the mirror consumed the boy. Shards of silver glass pierced his heart and his eyes and he went mad. The witch, horrified by what she had done, had carved him out of the mirror.

But the damage had been done.

Immortality was his, but at a high price. Blind and eaten by rage over what had been done to him, the boy turned on his former friend. Within moments, he tried killing the powerful witch. When his sword failed, he ran and disappeared into the mountains, becoming a terrifying monster. The witch, destroyed by what she had done, placed a thousand spells onto the mountain he ran onto, trapping him there forever in a deep sleep until she returned.

Grandmother's eyes were saddened as she finished the tale. and although Kairi was frightened by the sudden turn that her favorite story had taken, she asked what happened to the witch and why the ice harvester became evil. Grandmother had smiled at her, assuring her that the witch was safe and explain it to her very slowly, letting her grandchild ask all the questions she wanted.

The witch had sworn, Grandmother told her, then that no one would step foot on the mountain. Not until the ice harvester was saved. She gave it to a family of kings, begging them to protect her friend as she searched for a way to restore him and to remove the magic glass from his body. But the witch, being only a creature of good magic, could not save him on her own.

After all the glass, being filled with a witch's love and spells, was originally a gift to see how lovely the world was with all of its magic... But his pain warped them into seeing only the darkest nature of the world. Seeing the blackest of sins inside others, even his friend, had driven him mad and made him want to destroy everything he found. The magic swallowed him and turned evil and the witch did not have the power to take it out alone.

So she left him in the care of her king and disappeared from the world to save him.

Ever since then, Grandmother whispered to Kairi, their family had been taking care of the mountain and the ice harvester on it. Kairi, captivated by the story, had wondered out loud which mountain the monster lived on. It was then that Grandmother had picked her up and taken her to a window that overlooked the valley they lived in. She pointed to the biggest, tallest, and most snow-covered mountain in Radiant Gardens.

There, she said, the ice harvester slept in an eternal winter.

That was the mountain her parents had had their accident. Kairi then demanded to know if the car crash was the monster's fault. If he had somehow killed her parents. At Grandmother's confused hesitation, the little girl screamed indignantly and had stormed into the cleaning closet, choosing a mop as her trusted weapon and tried to go outside to get revenge.

After soothing her, Grandmother explained that that wasn't the reason she had told her the story. She had wanted Kairi to know that not every story ended happily… and that it also didn't mean that a happy ending couldn't happen. After all, the witch was still out there and she was trying to end the story. It meant that even though bad things happened, it didn't mean the story had to be sad. Even the witch could still be happy, and that meant Kairi could be happy even without her parents because she had a grandmother who loved her very, very much.

Kairi, placated by this, had asked if the ice harvester could wake up. Grandmother had nodded but said that a snowstorm had killed their family and that didn't mean that Kairi had to go out and get revenge. After all, the mountain was always covered in snow and Kairi was far safer inside than on its wintry peaks.

Grandmother had knelt to the ground and hugged her granddaughter with the biggest hug possible for such a little girl.

She loved her grandchild and she hoped that Kairi would always remember that. Kairi loved her, too, and promised with all the solemnity a four year could muster, that she would never step foot on the ice harvester's mountain.


End file.
